Argon can be produced by cryogenic distillation of air, which typically contains about 0.93% of this inert gas. To facilitate its transportation to utilization sites, Argon is often liquefied (to minimize its volume) and kept in cryogenic storage tanks. Distillation of air at cryogenic temperatures is done in an insulated casing commonly known as “cold box”, composed mainly of distillation columns and heat exchangers. Due to its relatively low concentration in air and the high process distillation costs, pure Argon has a high value on the market. Liquid Argon, having a boiling temperature of −303° F. at ambient pressure, is subject to evaporation when loaded into storages (e.g. storage tanks, road tankers or rail cars) at production sites. Whenever possible, it is then worthwhile to recuperate pure Argon vapors and return them to liquid storage.
In order to recuperate and condensate Argon vapors, they were traditionally sent back to the air distillation column, where integrated heat exchangers cooled by liquid Nitrogen, would condense those Argon vapors back to liquid and then returned to storage. However, existing air distillation plants, which are not equipped with such integrated heat exchangers, do not have this capability of recondensing Argon vapors. Additionally, there are times where argon storage tanks are located in areas that do not have access to distillation columns, and therefore, the prior methods are inapplicable.